Entrepreneurs’ AttitudesFurther dev

Entrepreneurs’ Attitudes
Further developments from the above are whether
entrepreneurial attitude orientations have anything to
do with firm size and various managers’ characteristics
(Robinson, Stimpson, Huefner, & Hunt, 1991). In other
words, do firm size and managers’ characteristics determine entrepreneurial attitudes? This is best answered by
understanding the definition of entrepreneurship, which
has been viewed as opportunity seeking, recognition,
and exploitation through novel resource recombination
(Zahra, Korri, & Yu, 2005). It is believed that to start
a new business, the individual, environment, organization, and entrepreneurial journey are the four main contributing factors (Lin, 2006). It is in this journey that
entrepreneurs attributes might be related to exploiting
opportunities that others do not recognize or choose
not to pursue (Tajeddini & Mueller, 2009). These attributes include innovation, organization creation, creating
value, profit or nonprofit growth, and uniqueness
(Robinson et al., 1991); risk-taking propensity, need for
achievement, locus of control, tolerance of ambiguity,
self-confidence, and need for autonomy (Tajeddini &
Mueller, 2009); and imagination, openness to experience,
inquisitiveness or curiosity, intuition, idea finding, independence, and insight (Butler, Doktor, & Lins, 2010).
Most research using these attributes is done under the
personality theory that seeks to emphasize personal dispositions or traits. This approach is heavily criticized by
Robinson et al. (1991) as a dead end offering little hope
of furthering the understanding of entrepreneurship.
Robinson et al. (1991) presented the attitude theory as
an alternative to the trait approach. They define attitude
as ‘‘the predisposition to respond in a generally favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to the object
of the attitude’’ (p. 17). Developments in social psychology have led to an explanation of ‘‘attitude’’ as a
predisposition toward a particular object, which, according to Athayde (2009, p. 482), is ‘‘more dynamic than
that of ‘‘trait’’ as attitudes are responsive to external
objects, and are capable of change.’’ Citing Rust and
Golombok, Athayde (2009, p. 482) further argues that
‘‘an ‘attitude’ is also a much richer concept by being
manifest in three ways: cognitive (beliefs), affective
(emotions), and behavioral (actions)’’ and does not
exist in isolation but toward an object (Robinson et al.,
1991).
Robinson et al. (1991) developed the Entrepreneurial
Attitude Orientations (EAO) to measure four dimensions associated with entrepreneurship: Achievement in
business (concrete results associated with the start-up
and growth of a business venture); Innovation in business
(perceiving and acting on business activities in new and
unique ways); Perceived personal control of business outcomes (individual’s perception of control and influence
over his or her business); and Perceived self-esteem in
business (the self-confidence and perceived competency
of an individual in conjunction with his or her business
affairs). Their study found that reliability of the EAO
measure was within acceptable standards. Robinson
et al. (1991) emphasized that their scale was not intended to be an exhaustive list of the attitudes associated
with entrepreneurship. Therefore, this study developed
a questionnaire that sought to measure entrepreneurial
motives, motivation, self-efficiency, problem solving
and initiativeness, and managerial innovation.
In presenting the attitude approach to prediction of
entrepreneurship, Robinson et al. (1991) criticized the
demographic approach’s assumption that human behavior is determined or strongly influenced by demographic characteristics. They argue that ‘‘it is the specific
reaction to circumstances, not a given set of demographic characteristics, that determines entrepreneurship’’
(p. 16). However, they also maintain that some researchers have used demographic characteristics as explanatory constructs in entrepreneurship but further argue
that this connection is tenuous and lacks adequate
empirical evidence. This study develops this linkage
and broadens it to include company characteristics as potential explanatory constructs in entrepreneurship.
Hence, this study seeks to test the following hypotheses: